Democrats defend Omar, rip Trump over 9/11 controversy

President's tweet: 'We will never forget'

Published: 04/13/2019 at 11:45 PM

(CNN) The controversy over Rep. Ilhan Omar’s remarks about the September 11, 2001, terror attacks widened Friday, as progressives and 2020 hopefuls rushed to the Minnesota Democrat’s defense and President Donald Trump amplified the issue by tweeting a video featuring the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Conservatives in recent days have seized on comments Omar made at the Council on American-Islamic Relations last month, in which she said, “CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”

In a tweet on Friday morning, Omar — one of the first two Muslim women in Congress — quoted former President George W. Bush in the wake of the attack as a way of defending her own words.